


can’t you just lie

by isoldewas



Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: F/M, I stand by my previous statement, domestic!Lenny, heavily inspired by nick from the new girl, thought I’d mention that so you won’t have a heart attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 22:08:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17353517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isoldewas/pseuds/isoldewas
Summary: “Midge-”don’t.He smiles but-Get out of here, you can either be here or do that, but not both, no one can do both, nobody does both.





	can’t you just lie

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: i watched the 13 minutes of the real “All alone” drunk, and that is exactly the amount of research that was put into this. Mackenzie McHale would not be proud.
> 
> and. thanks to @thursdayschildren you get to experience it without the awkward phrasing. THANK YOU SO MUCH

People are starting to laugh before he gets to the punchline.

That comes with fame. People tell their friends “Oh, he’s funny, you should absolutely come see him,” or at least that is how he imagines his new-found big-boy public communicate. And to impress the friends they come up to Lenny and say (that one he has heard a million times over though it never feels old) "That was so good.” That’s where he is supposed to throw in a pleasantry. And he tries, he really tries, but he also likes a challenge, so he says something different every time. Tries out punchlines on the fifty-year-old ladies and their forty-year-old brothers and their twenty-something daughters, and they laugh, they always laugh before he gets through his sentence.

That is if they laugh. Sometimes they don't but that's neither here nor there.

He knows they know he is supposed to be funny, expect him to have a funny comeback and don't bother judging his act off stage, they are paying good money to hear him and they will be pleased whatever he says.

Speaking of things that are neither here nor there: his wife doesn’t laugh at his jokes. It’s not a heart-broken “anymore”, it’s an “even in the beginning she didn’t.” She knew he was good like his audience knows he is funny, they know it but they don’t _know_ it.

His wife is, well, there is a wife, that's as far as he lets it get. Nothing to see here, moving on, half the population are wives, Midge for one is a wife. Midge is a lot of things, really, and he'd like to keep it at that because she is too much all by herself and so much already. He'd like to stop keeping track of things she is but can't seem to stop: there he goes and goes and goes and goes and the one thing he'd really like to know is how her divorce is going. But you try asking a woman you hardly ever see (apart from grand gestures like bail and sharing a stage in a crappy bar Midtown: she is moving up) “Oh, hey, so how un-married are you exactly at this point in time?”

He'd love that for himself too, some days more than others, that bothers him, sure, but. But, he thinks, every woman, man and child in America is trying to escape a marriage in one form or another. What bothers him more is that he’d looked at the sign that reads "Lawyer” every time he walked down the 14th Street in the last two months. Looked and didn’t consider his court appointments, entertained the idea of his own divorce instead. And it's not even his lawyer. There might not be any lawyers in the building, for all he knows they might all be dead since before the war; still.

What it comes down to is this: he can't unmake his life just to ask her out. What it comes down to is: he doesn’t want to take her out. He just thinks about lawyers and divorce and his wife because Midge doesn't seem like a type to want to get with an un-free man and it's not like he could ask, "So are you divorced yet and does it matter much to you if I am not and would you like me to-”

They cross paths at gigs and bars sometimes, never like that one time though, he doesn't do that again. He would, he thinks he would, she is that good, but Susie doesn't seek him out again.

He gets why: the one guy who asked Lenny about his unprecedented comeback to Gaslight asked about Midge too. They were standing in the middle of a crowded room waiting for drinks and he hasn’t defended anyone’s honour since 1953 so he is a little rusty and he doesn’t do things he’s half good at, so he said “No” and walked over to personally harass his scotch out from a bartender.

The other time he hears the words “Lenny’s girl” are immediately followed by Susie’s “Fuck off” and oh, there they are. Andy doesn’t fuck off though, with all his newly discovered artist indignation, he states like it's so obvious "And here you are again, both of you-" and goes on blabbering, Lenny doesn’t hear it behind the laughter from the audience. Well, at least someone is landing their lines right.

Lenny’s standing behind the group, Midge's one-quarter of a face the only thing visible to him. She rolls her eyes and looks to the stage: she must be up next.

Lenny interrupts him with a "Fuck off Andy,” less feeling to it than Susie’s carried, but Andy does shut up after an “Of course” and a look. Lenny lights up his cigarette, wants to help the tension, a noble pursuit indeed, but he doesn’t know where to begin: Andy is still there, hasn’t moved. Punching him wouldn’t diffuse anything, would it?

Susie smiles at him, a stark difference with how she glares at Andy, but the smile fades quickly and what comes out of her mouth is “You’re not helping." It gets lost in the applause though and then Mrs. Maisel is up.

Susie goes to the bar for a better view of the set. Midge takes a breath, plasters on a smile. Lenny wishes her good luck as she walks past him, Midge spares him a glance and gets on stage.

The audience must be shit though.

Everything here is still shit: from the wallpaper to the dust to the drinks. The mic won't work, had worked just fine before and won’t budge now. She raises her voice, misses the framing, her first minute doesn’t land quite like she would want it to. Lenny glances at Susie whose jaw is halfway to the floor and well, Mrs. Maisel is rarely bad, she is not even ever mediocre, so this is a sight. He smiles when she goes for it again, trying a different bit from her other set, he can tell, and Lenny bursts out laughing. It’s funny, it’s her, it’s the horror on Susie’s face. But then Midge looks to Susie and that unravels whatever act she had just managed to put together: it’s ridiculous, she is so lost all of a sudden.

It goes like that for a solid six minutes until she bids them adieu with a “screw you” on her face.

It's his turn, what idiot is in charge of the line up, with no room to take a breath. He is still hunched over from laughter when she announces him, what idiot asks people to introduce their replacements. Midge is angry and frustrated and more likely to take off her heels and throw them at the loud table by the exit than to give up the spot.

He gets on stage nonetheless, because if you can't pull yourself together when you need to, you aren't worth shit in this business, catches her by the arm in the process. He wants to thank her for all this laughter before she gets to go home. Looks at her, tries to communicate but it must come off different, she doesn’t get it: she doesn’t need it, not this, not now.

He gets up there but before she leaves her hand is on his forearm too, and she almost smiles, bright light of the projector highlighting the subtle shift in her expression.

Well, he isn't worth shit apparently: he gets to the mic, says his well-rehearsed first few lines, holds a pause and. And he does it wrong—not on purpose, he’d have to insist on that when explaining to the club’s owner, how the only real name of the line up fucked it up. Not on purpose, sure, but close enough. Looking at her, laughing at his own jokes more so than the audience, catching himself in the middle and trying to course correct but it’s done. 

Midge is looking at him in disbelief for every one of the seven minutes he manages to drag his set on. She didn’t think she’d stay: there is a bag on her arm, she isn’t sitting, hasn’t ordered a drink. She’s here to see his disaster of a set through. It’s just a gig, he wants to say.

He approaches her near the bar when he’s finished. People still clap, now that’s fame. 

Lenny wants a drink and to go to the john, light up a joint, wants to talk to her too; hasn’t settled on anything when she says “That was nice of you.”

“I _am_ nice,” he says before registering the implication in her words. Midge raises her eyebrows in a _really?_ , her eyes wide and bright and joking. Lenny gestures to a bartender, really needing that drink now. “A scotch, sure, perfect.”

“Why did you do it?” There is so much going on in her eyes his throat goes dry. He picks up his drink right as the loud table explodes with laughter again, fuck them, could have done that ten minutes ago, wouldn’t have cost you.

All he wants to do is tell her it’s shit. Whatever happened, it’s nothing, you walk out of the bar, you get into another the very next evening and there you rebuild and you go to prison if need be and you marry or, in her case, if you really need to, you marry again.

He is finishing up his scotch when she says “Lenny.” She waits for him to turn his head before declaring: “I need to go to the bathroom.” He laughs. Somehow he expects everything she says to be impossibly true and real, and she knows that, _uses_ it. Just now, she knew he would laugh.

They move towards the bathroom, the only one functioning, men’s room turned ladies’ and, lads, you’ll just have to hold it in, won’t you.

“Hold on,” and just like that Midge’s purse in his hand and she locks the door behind her. Her bag is almost her, he takes time to process, takes time to consider opening it up and seeing what book replaced Doctor Spock’s. “Where’s Susie?” he asks instead, not wasting anything anymore.

“She left right after my set,” Midge’s voice is low and quiet through the door but he listens so carefully he might fool himself into believing he is not drunk, it’s all okay, well, she is talking to him so it must be.

When she reappears, she is so, so pretty.

Must be the drink kicking in, but what does he care, half of his life is made of things kicking in. No one is supposed to exit a bathroom in a bar like this, he is sure no one is legally allowed to. There are laws for everything that presents a potential threat, he should know.

She gets her bag back from him and makes a gesture, an “I’ll wait for you,” gesture if he’s ever seen one. "I am not sure I could pass for a lady in this suit,” Lenny retorts. The sign does say “Ladies,” right underneath the crossed-out “Gents.” She leans in and whispers in her conspirator's voice “I’ll stand guard,” and he realises suddenly: you do not say no to Midge.

He shuts the door behind; he’d give her his bag if he had one on him, just to make sure she’ll stay. “Why did you stay?” he asks. Why did she. Why did he bomb, why wasn’t he funny. Why does he need to know, he hadn’t needed anything other than a drink or a high or money in a very long time. He had settled for people laughing before he gets to the funny bit, made amends for the war crimes that were never recognised as such but mattered nonetheless- 

An answer should not matter as much anyway. Her silence right now should not bother him, but it does.

He washes his hands in a rush to get out and see her again, opens the door. But she hasn’t heard. Midge is too busy giving autographs, well, one, one autograph, on a real piece of paper though, not a napkin, that's fame too.

Midge hands the woman the pen, “Here you go, Joan,” and Joan walks away smiling. Midge turns to him with a disgusted look on her face, shaking her hand: “Ew, it’s sticky, what is up, lady? Lenny, move, my hands are dirty!” 

Her hip goes very near his as she reaches for the sink. Again, he isn’t supposed to notice that. He notices too much of her, watches her carefully, he is never careful like that.

She washes her hands and reaches for the toilet paper: the towel hanging near the sink does look disgusting, belongs on a mop. But he has used the last of it just now drying his hands. “Sorry” he offers a split second before her hands are on his chest.

Not that sorry now.

She wipes her hands on his shirt, way too close, her mascara is smudged a bit under her left eye.

“Midge-” _don’t._ He smiles but- _Get out of here, you can either be here or do that, but not both, no one can do both, nobody does both._

"Yes?" She shifts easily into this: very busy, very high energy, like he hasn't been in years. She is so many things, from smitten by the bar, to matter of fact in the tight bathroom. Overall, such a wonderful woman to be around, in limited doses, too much otherwise, terrifyingly heartbroken and optimistic and _at once,_ he can't put his finger on it, on her; he would want to put his hands on her.

"Your left eye isn’t as good looking as your- right eye,” he barely manages to stumble through his sentence, makes half a gesture with his wrist in between words, when her bag lands in his hands again and she is out of the door, well, no, she locks the door and turns to the mirror, inspecting her reflection. He carefully puts her bag on the shut toilet seat, there is a lot to consider here, he can’t take care of her bag too, he isn’t God.

What he is though, is trapped. In a room of a limited number of square feet, with a dirty towel and a mirror that has both of them in it. He looks exactly how he always looks but his head, shoulders, everything is turned to her, it's a goddamn baroque painting with the lines and the structure and the shadows. Do they rent this place out, the light is simply marvellous, no space for a canvas but still.

Lenny reads tension well, should know how to, what with how broke he is, it’s a matter of survival. 

There is tension here too, her and him and the baroque bathroom.

He does not know how to _not_ do anything about it. She turns to him, her eyes on his, thinking where to go on from here. Considering what she’ll say next, and that’s the point: she doesn’t know.

He gets on his knees.

He gets to his knees and the floor is dirty, he wouldn't notice it were it not for her impossibly clean green heels.

Lenny keeps staring at her shoes for a while, doesn't really want to know what she thinks of this, another grand gesture of his. With any luck, you know, maybe she didn't notice. He thinks he'll look up and she'd just raise an eyebrow: a dare, an invitation, and he'd just do it then, because he wants to. And he does, he does want to.

So he looks up but her eyes are closed, her mouth is open and he hasn't kissed her, yet here they both are, in a bathroom, like this. He isn't sure about it, not sure at all, but then her fingers land just to the right of her thigh and they stay there, straight and unmoving. Lenny brings himself closer to where she stands and she must feel it because her thighs press together, and one of her straight fingers digs into the fabric of her trousers.

That's— okay.

He lifts his hands, which have been useless up to this point, to her hips and then to the button on her trousers. His fingers are usually quick and clever, he has never had any trouble tying his shoelaces, not even as a kid, he doesn't think, but here they feel numb and this single button is a— well, he doesn't have a metaphor at hand.

He lets out a frustrated grunt and her fingers are on his, he’d think to calm him down, but she gets them away as fast, her pants already unbuttoned.

He says "Thank you,” he thinks. He is so hard, he isn't sure the cost of dry-cleaning would be worth his trousers.

He tugs her pants lower; his fingers curling into the edge of her panties, his mouth almost on her. She makes a sound, they are really doing it now. Her hand is tangled up in his hair when he notices it. This is where it always ends up, no matter how many times he does this.

He remembers his hands are clean, sinks a finger into her and her breath catches. He can't rewind it and listen to it again but he wants to cut it on a vinyl, curls his finger inside her instead, tries to make her do that again.

Lenny lifts his eyes at her again. Midge is looking in the mirror, her eyes meeting their reflection. He supposes now would be a good time to lie and say his wife is a fiction brought about by tax returns, just so not to add to Midge's inner turmoil. But, that is not true. Not that he is above lying but he doesn't want to lie to her, maybe next time, and that is alarming: he just assumes it's going to happen again.

She whispers something and Lenny can’t catch it, he has tuned out everything but her and it still escapes him. Her voice sounded terribly hoarse though and he wants to hear it the next time, and there he goes again, _next._

He stands up with fingers still inside of her, changing the angle abruptly and she grunts loud, so much louder than they should be.

He allows himself to kiss her neck, her marvellously uncovered shoulders, her jaw, and that's too close to her bright open eyes; he wants to look at her and he doesn't want that at all.

Changes the angle again, remembers suddenly how to use his height and broad shoulders, crowds her into the wall, nearly hitting the sink. His mouth feels empty, he is towering over her, but her mouth is on his neck. She is not a bystander so, well, figures.

He wants her and she, well, wants him: that's a lot of information for an after-gig screw in the bathroom. Midge adds on to that: her hips pushing forward, her knee bumps against his; she is so many things. Her hip presses against him and that is how he comes. Easy and embarrassing and what a terrible timing.

It makes him stop for a minute. Midge starts moving on his fingers and he gets, it really feels like he _gets to_ go on.

She bites into his shoulder when she comes, he can’t see her face though it feels like he deserves to.

After, she moves away from him, it takes Midge pulling her pants up to be all neat and okay again. Might never have happened at all, only Lenny’s bracing himself with one hand on the wall and the other on her shoulder. He slowly uncurls his fingers so she can move again. His hand stings at the loss of contact, there has to be something here capable of- 

“Do you happen to have a joint on you?”

She is still hoarse. 

He pulls a joint out of his pocket, he’d rolled this one before the gig, a whole lot of things ago. And sure, let's also get high in the bathroom, it’s better to leave here high than to leave here now.

He sits down right there, his back against the wall, takes two hits, can’t bear the prospect of the tension in the room with just a drink to dull it. Well.

She leans down from where she is standing, takes the joint from him, her fingers electric, which after everything is ridiculous. Midge takes a hit, and then another, all the while staring at the wall in front of her.

The cigarette comes off with lipstick stains and it’s equally ridiculous that this is where it gets him. It’s fucking Midge right there. Red lipstick must be on his neck too. He tries to stand up, awkwardly at best, holding up the joint, a prized possession indeed.

He tries to wash off the red from his collar with only one hand. Her fingers find his and there we go, she is going to say something now, isn’t she, but all she does is free his other hand. Takes a hit, her eyes on him. He’s sure she knows exactly what to apply at what temperature, probably has it in her purse too. Lenny is pretty sure he himself has that knowledge, must have learnt it at some point.

He wants to say something, anything. Wants to seal this with any sentence, to put it into words they have actually exchanged. Midge is quicker than he is. She already has her bag on her arm and her hand on the door handle. Her eyes are sparkling: she might not cough, but it hits her fast.

Susie is right there when they emerge from the bathroom. 

She abruptly finishes her conversation with the club owner, careless really: she is not that good yet, Midge is not famous enough for her to afford bad manners. Susie leaves him nonetheless, tucking away the money in her front pocket; “What the fuck did you two do?”

He checks his trousers and shirt, thinks _busted,_ checks his jacket and her blouse the best he can but Midge speaks Susie's language, figures out her meaning and almost screams out the right answer so he wouldn’t. In retrospect, a nudge under the table would have been more subtle.

“The audience was terrible,” she drags her words, artificially lazy until Susie cuts in with a well-timed, ill-intentioned “Well, the others made it work!”

“They’ve got no taste,” he says, staring at Susie long before her eyes are on him. She gives him a look, gives Midge her coat and takes her bag from her. “The others?” Susie asks him, clearly distracted by Midge’s bag. It does that to people, he wants to say.

“Them too, sure, but no, the audience-” he clarifies while Midge puts her coat on, covers her shoulders and arms in a single movement and Lenny feels, fucking feels this particular punch to the gut.

Susie is frowning at Midge who is talking at five thousand words a minute: about the crowd or their next gig or maybe even him, but not about the bathroom, nothing about that, not even a look; _look at me._

There is a smile on his face, not that he has noticed.

Susie asks “Are you two high?” just before they turn to leave. Lenny shrugs and smiles and is overall too busy to see that Midge looks at him then.

He stays at the bar, orders another drink, well, he asks for three but they only bring them one at a time.

When he gets arrested again, he doesn’t dare call his wife.

“Lenny?” Midge lets out, once he’s done introducing himself to a woman with a heavy accent. “Why are you calling?" She sounds very sincere and very serious and it’s the first he’s heard of her since the last time they saw each other so he considers his words carefully. Before he can get the chance to put his two cents in, she speaks again.

“How do you know my number?”

“Memorised it by heart, what did you expect?” That Lenny doesn’t consider at all, says it like there is nothing behind the statement. It’s true too: she’d given it to him a while back, had written it down on a napkin as a joke, careless and quite drunk and then she’d left him alone and after he ordered up he kept staring at the napkin until he got distracted by a fight nearby. Or a singer, or anything, he doesn’t know anymore, doesn’t know where the napkin went, what his brain decided to keep was her number.

He gets back to his "Bail me out?” That’s a lot to ask, he realises when she stays silent. In the background there is laughter and a woman asking whether there is mint in the sauce, someone is allergic and Midge should really get off the phone in case they need to call for a doctor.

"Am I your one call?" she says.

“Yeah.” _I wanted a change. The boys will start to think I’m faithful to my wife. Anything._

“Well then-” she takes a moment. He imagines her fingers twisting the cord. “I’m going to go down-” a breath, “to come-” a laugh; she is going somewhere with this, isn’t she.

“Midge.”

“Hm?”

“It’s not that good a joke.”

She arrives an hour and a half later. 

When he comes down the stairs she is trying to make way for the newly arrested drunk. The man can hardly walk and the officer tries to assist, does his best, surely, but his best includes bumping into McAvoy-the-guard. Now, the only thing interesting about McAvoy as far as Lenny is concerned is that his wife packs him a meal for every late shift. And the dinner he was carrying just now spills on Midge’s dress. Now, it’s Saturday night: these kinds of catastrophes are to be expected in this kind of place; Lenny’s rapidly moving past the absurdity. 

Midge lifts her hands in the air, as far from the stain as possible. She asks the guard for the bathroom and doesn’t notice Lenny. Lenny notices her coat on the chair behind her, neatly folded, perfectly clean. He sits down, puts his arm around it, if ever there was another drunk, he’d be able to move it out of the way.

He waits. His hand traces the lines of her coat, the fine stitching, the fabric. He can almost dissociate and imagine he is tracing lines on her skin. Well, that came out of nowhere. Well, no, but still.

Midge comes back and finally sees him, an almost surprised look on her face. Well, he wouldn’t have left her alone in here, would he; he really thinks that’s what her surprise is all about. It’s also the first time she sees him after the sex in the bathroom incident, and when Lenny remembers that, he is surprised too. 

They end up staring at each other for a second until Lenny decides that if he’s the one who called, it’s probably up to him to move this along. “I have an apartment-”

“Oh you do, do you? Ever sleep there?” Midge is pissed and looks tired, well, as tired as he’s ever seen her, she still got nothing on him. There is a water stain on the front of her dress, and it hasn't washed off the real issue there.

“If you want to, you could change there,” he offers, staring at the bright orange of her skirts.

She looks up at him, _looks_ at him for the first time since she'd dried her hands on his shirt in that bathroom weeks ago. “You think we can- do that?”

He smiles at that, can't help it. _You in my home? Sure._ He looks her up and down, “I think you should.”

She too looks at her dress assessing the damage. Not that Lenny knows a lot about dresses, but he knows damage well enough. He knows her well enough, she is not going out in this again. She is not going home like that either, is she.

“Come on then,” she says. “I’ll walk you home.” Outside, she catches a taxi, gives a “Figure of speech!” explanation to his “Didn’t you say we’d walk?”

She nods to the driver, Lenny slurs the address and there they go. His home. Her. Like two worlds colliding, like his public persona isn’t enough, like they really are friends.

She rolls her window down to let some fresh air in. Her hand settles neatly across the imaginary middle of the empty car seat in between them.

Her fingers are reaching out, or stuck in the middle, or claiming their space. It varies, depending on how he looks at it: quite literally, he angles his head differently staring at her long unmoving digits. And she stares at him, but at this point, he is having an intense silent battle with her hand and can’t take Midge into account too.

She tucks her hand away right before coming closer, as graceful as the backseat allows, puts her head on Lenny’s shoulder. The angle can’t be good but they stay like this a while.

Night lights aren’t very nice or bright in this area, their reflection on the windows comes down to one big blur, but some land in patches on her skin and coat, on the carefully folded arms in her lap. On her, the light is sharp, as if she’s moulding it into focus.

“It was funny,” she whispers in his ear, unexpected. He’s felt her shifting but didn’t think that was the point. He doesn’t know what she is talking about.

“I was having a party.” She sounds unsure, like she wants to see how it lands before getting on with her story. He doesn’t know whether he should be pleased or uncomfortable. And they just sit with that.

They pull up near his building; he should make a move. If it’s a no he’d at least be able to leave it in the space of a random cab. He doesn’t want any of it to be random, wants to know what he is doing, wants to know she knows. Wants to discuss fucking her before fucking her and that might just be news to both of them.

From what he catches when she hands the driver his fee, Midge tips well. Not appropriate for the early morning hours or the neighbourhood really, but well.

He holds out a hand in the direction of the front door and follows her. “Welcome.”

“Come in.” “Would you.” “Please.” He says at least one of those when they climb the stairs and another one before she steps in.

Midge’s too busy commenting on the colour of the door: it turns out she has an almost scary knowledge of shops and providers and- trees. He himself isn’t sure whether it’s oak, or whether it’s from that one shop across from Macy’s and he certainly did not know that you would have to talk to Joseph to get it done right.

“Please come in,” he says instead, means it with a terrifying degree of honesty.

She looks around for a short while, not so much taking the place in but assessing the damage. She is, well, she looks surprised. Like she’d expected better. It stirs something in his gut: he doesn’t like sharing things he’s not good at.

“Okay,” she replies, “this is not terrible.” “Well, thank you, Midge.”

She’s got one foot in the bathroom before she asks whether she could use the sink to wash the stain on her dress. Lenny goes to the kitchen, turns on the water and is considering washing the plates when Midge asks whether she could use a shower too.

_Sure, take my shower, take my apartment, take my life, me, take me._

She shuts the door behind her, and after taking off his coat Lenny leans on the wall, unbuttons his jacket.

From behind the door, she asks for a towel. He doesn’t know where to begin. It’s surreal. Lenny doesn’t know where the towels (and plural is optimistic) are. Also, and he has to open his eyes and look at the shut bathroom door for it to make any sense: Midge is in his shower. Midge. Midge, who would take one look around and find the damn thing. He starts searching.

 _Take mine,_ he thinks, defeated by his own home. _Sure, take mine. Why not._

He finds a clean one, brown and unappealing, stashed in the back of a particularly high shelf, brings it to the door when the water stops running. Midge opens it up a smidge and holds out her hand.

Her wet hair sticks to her forehead and to her neck and he thinks it's the prettiest most amazing thing he has seen but then he remembers how she often takes the mic off the stand, how she works the rope, the room, the tables, how she does that- anything. Remembers that her he knows, she’s in his life outside this, he’ll see her again, he has seen her already; remembers both getting to his knees in the bathroom and introducing her on stage.

She takes the towel and reappears a minute later. “Lenny,” she says, “Do you have any-” He shakes his head in a “no” before she gets to her point; doesn’t she see he doesn’t have a lot to offer? Even less so here.

She chuckles and catches him by the arm.

Now, what this comes down to is: he can't deny it. Her index finger stays on his wrist. It's visible, it's middle-of-the-day bright in here, they are not quick and gone, they are all out of excuses. She is asking if it’s okay, if they are good. Midge is waiting for permission, expecting really but she would not move without it.

It’s a good moment to clear things up, but he is enjoying himself way, way too much. Her fingers take his pulse but she isn’t counting, too invested in the moment. _Well, fuck me, Midge, you want me too._ Of all things.

He can’t help the smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth, can’t help his hands reaching out to touch her too. She is wet and clean and in this one towel that suddenly looks almost beige and new.

“And your wife?” What a sudden change of pace.

“Not- here?” It’s the first thing he says, prepares an array of answers, almost settles on the best four when Midge puts her hand around his neck. She angles her head, watches his mouth. His throat goes dry, and _are you kidding me, you, you don't need more?_ "I have words," he says, even if he doesn't seem like it: he stumbles across those three as it is.

"I have words too," she says; and goes on saying. Filthy things in his ear, in her voice. The bed is right there, they could do all that, yet she settles for a wall and once again, he is fully clothed in all of this and it's just Midge’s hand through his trousers. And it doesn't feel like settling at all.

Lenny wants to push her against the wall too, whisper things to her, make her undone with just his voice and for a second there it doesn't matter how good he is on stage if he can’t do this. To her.

Because he does this to his wife too, but she isn’t like this, she is not- her. It bothers him that there is a comparison to be made, that it won't quiet down no matter how often he makes it.

But before he does anything her fingers hook in his belt loops, her mouth is on his jaw. She stops talking and Lenny picks up right where she left off, not skipping a beat, they are good like that, should do theatre together.

When her hand touches him he moans and Midge smiles at that, but she also doesn't breathe for a while, just looks at him before saying his name. She actually says it, Lenny can't find any trace of plausible deniability, which is a loss of a kind: he is used to having it right there and it’s not. It’s weird, not being able to pretend it’s not happening, and weird is a nice way of putting it.

She goes off script there then, freezes. “I can not afford your wife costing me my job,” she says. It's clearly a warning, an order, almost. He remembers her bit on the fucking rules: very funny and very sad. He'd have to do something about his wife were it not for the fact that “She’s not going to-” Care. “Show up.”

“Okay,” and just like she is all quick hands and bright hungry eyes again. He pushes her against the wall with what little grace he can manage. She makes that obscene noise again, the word all too familiar to him, but this is not stage material, not material at all. He’d almost forgotten there was ever something worth being kept off stage.

And what is he doing to her that she moans like that, like something breaks. Whatever it is, she takes just as much back, brutal and unyielding. But she is soft too, skin and edges and mouth, nice and kind and full, he isn't sure how to operate around it, how to not break and still go “Harder," when she asks him to.

He remembers many adjectives from many books, they come as a fit enough description until they aren’t enough. Until she puts out the light and she is a shadow on the wall, a whisper in the dark, every other description for something you don’t see, want to touch, can’t get away from.

She is kind like that, she gives and she gives and she gives. And she takes, he is sure she takes what she can find, wouldn’t be here otherwise, but he doesn’t know what, doesn’t feel anything missing, doesn’t bother searching. 

It’s all very new. He’s gotten used to feeling like hope and optimism were misplaced, messy things real people grew out of.

Lenny shivers at her grunt against his skin, across the bed, his hands on her hips, fast and clever, this is not the first time anymore. She slides down onto him and, as a rule, he doesn't think it over much, not sex, but having Midge like this does feel like an equation.

He is smug, and proud, euphoric, after. The fact that it won’t last, the state and her presence both, is dulled. “Lenny?” A pause. “What am I supposed to change into?” He mumbles “Figure of speech,” and goes to sleep.

And that’s how she spends the night there. Waiting for her dress to dry up. 

A week later Paul sits down next to Lenny and asks about Midge. Now, Paul is up right after Midge, who is on stage, winning the room over one laugh at a time. And sure, her coat is draped over the chair, so maybe Paul is just putting two and two together when he asks “So what’s she like?”

Lenny almost responds, just to see what it feels like: “I don't know, Paul, I do not know. I’ve fucked her, she’s certainly fucked me, but I’ve got no idea what you’re asking, and how dare you.” But he catches himself just in time, turns to Paul and frowns. Takes a drag off his cigarette and keeps looking at him, dead serious. 

Paul walks away, Midge gets off the stage and sits down next to him after exchanging words with Susie.

"I was good,” she smiles wide, her eyes glowing, the black of her dress reflecting light rather than absorbing it.

"Yes," Lenny nods. “You’re amazing.” He’s smiling at her too. “But,” he spreads his hands, “I’m hardly objective.” She cracks him up every time she wants to, to her he is no audience, he’s done defending a semblance of control here. There might be defeat in admitting that, but Lenny doesn’t mind. He doesn't mind her at all, ever, and all the things she is, they are not too much anymore, it’s barely enough.

"No, you’re getting worse and worse,” she says it like it’s a secret, intimate and good, a joke instead of an acknowledgement of his confession.

 _Can’t you just lie, Midge,_ he wants to say, _would you? I am half in love with you. You don’t need to know it too._

Paul’s on the stage, begins with a comment on advertising, but Lenny’s distracted. “We are not going to look at Paul, are we?” He asks. “Don’t we hate Paul?” Lenny realises he’s heard his wife say the same thing to get out of gigs he’d dragged her to. Might have been in this very bar. 

And then Midge snaps his attention: she has her hand on his thigh beneath the table. “We aren’t going to listen to Paul,” she says, still looking at the stage. It shows on her face. She raises her eyebrows, eyes wide and intense, like she is convincing him. He laughs.

“Midge,” he shakes his head.

“Lenny,” she smiles.

In this light, and who is he kidding, this has nothing to do with the light— everything looks better. A bit blurry too, like it’d usually get by the fifth drink.

Lenny catches her as she bites her lip, an attempt to silence a groan that escapes her nonetheless. And there he was trying to control himself.

Paul shuts up— no, nope, just holding a pause, okay. Lenny and Midge laugh all the same, following their cue everyone does; before Paul gets to the punchline, god, he is going to think he is famous now, isn’t he?

A few days later, she tells Susie. Lenny finds this out when Susie tells him to “Better watch it.” He thinks he can handle that until they actually lock eyes. She insists he look at her for an uncomfortably long while before she speaks again. “And don’t you dare blab.”

She proceeds to questioning him, operating more out of self-confidence than any real authority. Susie is cutting lemons for the drinks, so she has a knife in her hand and she is pointing it at him. It all feels terribly important and a bit scary, Susie’s knife emphasising what little of it went over his head.

“I know,” he keeps saying, he does know. He is controversial, he is— He doesn’t want to— What would her parents say? And he is not— He doesn’t like doing things he’s not good at.

There is a lot to consider, he realises while answering Susie’s questions. Not that him and Midge were heading somewhere, but— If it ever lasts long enough, the summer is going to come around, and what’s he going to do with her in her bathing suit, and what if it’s near the sea and they are just _one of_ the couples, what if they are a couple, one that takes trips to the beach at that, just _one of _the families, lazy and far away from censorship, dirty jokes, the subtle overthrow of the government one laugh at a time.__

From what Midge tells him, she’s at a very advanced stage of her separation. Lenny and Honey have filed for divorce, but that’s neither here nor there.

What matters more is that he’s dragged off stage, he is drunk and he is high more often than not. And he doesn’t want to meet another set of parents who are going to hate him and he doesn’t want to meet the kids she never talks about. The prospect of a family summer vacation seems terrible but it’s there. He makes sure not to trust it, but it’s there.

And for a moment Lenny imagines he could be all that. He’d disappoint the in-laws and he’d do it all over again. He’d explain it to the rabbi, he’d clean up his act for a day and charm Midge’s fifty-year-old aunts and their forty-year-old brothers and their twenty-something daughters. It lasts a split second and scares the shit out of him.

In reality, he doesn’t think it’s going to go as far, he’s able to recognise it’ll go as far the pitying nod and a “no.” He still asks her whether she’s concerned about how terribly unsuitable he is.

She frowns, considering. “No.”

_Oh._

It’s never going to be hers to deal with, is it?

They fall asleep in his bed, second time that week, and he thinks he should have known. He should have seen she doesn’t get angry at him, doesn’t get disappointed: like she’d decided a while ago that the drinking and the drugs aren’t going to have a direct impact on her, not on her pre-existing family, never on her uptown friends.

She is kind like that. Moves away from the mess, and the dust, and the empty bottles. Midge ignores what she doesn’t like, gives him permission to exist around it, as he would but with her sitting on his chair. Lying in his bed. Rocking her hips a little slower right before she comes.

He’s heard in one of her sets Midge ran past him- Lenny on his couch, her on the improvised stage in the middle of the room, neighbours’ laugh out of sync with the punchlines, but Midge’s used that too, brilliantly. He heard she sneaked out of bed every night and then pretended to be woken up every day, for _years. _Lenny’s thought then, just as he thinks now, he couldn’t have pretended for that long.__

There was devotion in her words, in every word she used. There was a look in her eyes: now that he has seen it up close, he can’t unsee it. It said a whole lot about the four years she spent with her husband. How must that have felt, in love, for four fucking years. He’s not sure he’s got four months out of it.

Anyway, where she is kind, she is also cruel: she forgot to mention they weren’t in it for a long haul. When he asks her again, two months after they first slept together, not nearly enough time has passed for him to be asking these questions, but that’s where he’s at.

He asks whether this could happen anywhere near the Upper West Side. By “this” he means them together, by “happen” he means anything but a gig and by “Upper West Side” a place where someone might actually see “this.” Midge looks shocked, like it’s some kind of betrayal that he would want to know.

He gets frustrated, angry like he has a right to be. Like he is _allowed _to. “Give me a break, Midge.”__

____

_I don’t want to be an escape route. I want to meet your parents. I didn’t think I’d ever say this but here it is._

____

She doesn’t look convinced. More like she got the rug pulled out from under her.

____

“Could we still try,” his voice soft, Lenny keeps glaring at her, uneasy.

____

“You don’t want to.” She sounds very sure. It must be true, then. For this to continue, it must be true. He thinks, if he keeps talking, he’ll get caught, she’ll see and she’ll leave. Her life doesn’t allow for too much of him, so she’ll never ask too much of him, so he is safe and good and can want for more without the threat of actually getting what he wants.

____

_Okay then._

____

“I want to go home,” she says. And it hits him: she means his home.

____

He wants to go home too. Whatever home is at this point, could be jail, could be wherever his wife’s at. Could be Midge, and even though it feels like asking too much of her, Lenny thinks it might just be true. And she might just accept.

____

**Author's Note:**

> look at me shrugging off sexist comments, cause it’s all Lenny’s POV.


End file.
